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Tennessee’s Water Resources

“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” —John Steinbeck East of Eden. Tennessee’s Water Resources. A Regional Concern

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Tennessee’s Water Resources

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  1. “And it never failedthat during the dry yearsthe people forgot about the rich years,and during the wet yearsthey lost all memory of the dry years.It was always that way.”—John SteinbeckEast of Eden

  2. Tennessee’s Water Resources A Regional Concern Lynnisse Roehrich-PatrickAssociate Executive Director Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations

  3. Tennessee’s Water Resources Having It All~ ~Where you need it ~When you need it ~of the Quality you need ~in the Quantity you need

  4. Stored Water vs.Natural Water Droughts • Stored water droughts occur when large stores of water in man-made reservoirs, natural lakes, and groundwater aquifers depleted by very long, unusually low periods of precipitation. • Natural water droughts quickly and fairly frequently follow just a few weeks or months of below-normal rainfall. Source: National Drought Policy Commission Report (2000).

  5. How Stored Water Droughts Happen • People without enough stored water build reservoirs or tap into surface (natural lakes and streams) or groundwater (aquifers) storage. • Reliable water supports population growth and more diverse water uses: • Hydro-power dams create popular fishing and boating lakes and valuable lake view property. • Reservoir operating policies ensure minimum flows for fish and wastewater dilution when there would not otherwise be enough water in the stream. • Cities and farmers increase their withdrawals as they prosper and grow. Source: National Drought Policy Commission Report (2000).

  6. How Stored Water Droughts Happen • An unusually long dry period forces reservoir operators to draw down man-made lakes to • support withdrawals for cities and farms, • produce hydropower, • and keep enough water in navigation channels for barges to float. • But • homes and businesses around the lake now have views of mud flats, • boat ramps no longer reach the water, and • lake fisheries suffer when releases are made for riverine species. Source: National Drought Policy Commission Report (2000).

  7. Where You Need It? Franklin, Tennessee, August 27, 2007 With less than a tenth of an inch of rain so far this month, and more than 14 days with high temperatures at or above 100°F, water in retention ponds has been decreasing to record levels. This one is nearly dry. Water restrictions are currently in effect. Photo courtesy of Jordan Gerth. Source: National Drought Mitigation Center

  8. Where You Need It? Laurel Lake Source: WDEF, news12, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Monteagle, Tennessee, October 2007

  9. Where & When You Want It?

  10. Average Stream Flow during August 1-27, 2007

  11. Average Stream Flow during August 1-27, 2007

  12. Where & When You Want It?Monthly Average Stream Flow

  13. Where & When You Want It?Part Deux

  14. Statewide Precipitation Ranksfor Tennessee , 2006-2007 Source: National Climatic Data Center/NESDIS/NOAA. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/prelim/drought/st040dv00pcp.html

  15. When You Need It?

  16. When You Need It?

  17. Compounding the Problem

  18. Where & When You Want It?

  19. Where & When You Want It?

  20. Where & When You Want It?

  21. Where & When You Want It?

  22. Where You Need It? Orme, Tennessee, November 08, 2007 Orme Mayor Tony Reames makes one of his regular trips to check the filtration, pump and tank system in Orme, Tennessee, November 8, 2007. A small town tucked away in the mountains of southern Tennessee is getting by on just a few hours of water a day because its spring has run dry in the drought sweeping the U.S. Southeast. Source: Montreal Gazette

  23. “There is only so much water on this mountain.”Crossville city attorney Lanny Colvard • Crossville, the county seat of Cumberland County, the 5th fastest-growing county in Tennessee, faces conflict with its neighbors as it seeks to provide for its own future water needs. Its city council recently approved a plan to restrict further expansions by other utility districts that purchase city water. Worried that its own sources of supply are barely adequate for anticipated needs, Crossville officials are seeking to limit the ability of neighbors to tap into local reservoirs. Meanwhile, Cumberland County has sought help in the form of a $5 million federal grant to develop a regional pilot program and feasibility study of various water supply options and implement a long-term solution. • Crossville has been pinning hopes for additional water on a dam to be constructed on the Caney Fork River. As of this writing, there appears little chance that a permit will be issued for such a project due, in part, to environmental opposition. Enlargement of the city’s current Meadow park Lake Dam is another option being explored in lieu of the Caney Fork proposal. While the ultimate choice of water supply alternative remains uncertain, it appears likely that some combination of pumping water uphill from TVA’s Watts Bar Reservoir on the Tennessee River, storing rainwater in new lakes and ponds, or building new dams on nearby creeks and streams may be adopted. Source:Research Needs for Protecting Tennessee’s Water Supply: A Baseline for Continued Policy Development (Feldman & Albertson 2003).

  24. Dealing with Stored Water Droughts No one can tell when it will rain enough to reverse this trend, so water deliveries have to be reduced, but to whom first and by how much? • There may be a conflict between fairness and good economic policy in making water allocations. • The newest water uses may generate more income and tax revenue than the oldest established uses. Such conflicts are normally resolved on a case-by-case basis. Source: National Drought Policy Commission Report (2000).

  25. The Hydro-illogical Cycle Source: National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.

  26. Needs of Tennessee residents Domestic consumption Recreation Power generation Needs of Business and Industry Consumption Navigation Power generation Water Resource Policy Challenges • Demands in other states that share watersheds Managing competing interests!

  27. Source, Use, and Disposition of Water in Tennessee in 1995Total of 10.1 billion gallons per day. Source: U.S. Geological Survey and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. http://tn.water.usgs.gov/wustates/tn/summarypipes.html

  28. Normandy DamTVA’s Duck River “Balancing Act” Normandy Reservoir is located on the Duck River in south central Tennessee. The 17-mile-long reservoir was completed in the 1970s to aid in the economic development of the upper Duck River region. Source: TVA, http://www.tva.gov/sites/normandy.htm.

  29. Water Disputes in the Southeast and Their Impact on Tennessee • Growing competition by different users over the same surface and groundwater supplies is increasingly taking the form of “up” versus “downstream” use and dependence on water supply sources that extend over several jurisdictions and even states. • Land use changes, population growth, rapid urbanization, and regional climate variation are imposing new, largely unanticipated pressures on the region’s water and reveal the impossibility of separating, and discretely managing, water supply and water quality. • Protecting local water supplies and keeping them safe, clean, and available—while promoting economic growth—are proving to be difficult-to-reconcile goals in rapidly growing metropolitan areas and smaller communities that seek to broaden their tax base and economically diversify. Source: Research Needs for Protecting Tennessee’s Water Supply: A Baseline for Continued Policy Development (Feldman & Albertson 2003).

  30. We’re All In This Together!

  31. Memphis and its Light, Gas & Water Division have been sued by the state of Mississippi. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Federal District in Oxford in February 2005. (The trial has been rescheduled for early next year according to the Commercial Appeal.) Mississippi claims that one-third of the water Memphis pumps—about 60 million gallons a day—comes from south of the state line. This water is "unreasonably and unlawfully diverted," causing harm to the aquifer, it says. Source: U.S. Water News Online.

  32. Managing Water ResourcesComplicating Factors • Interests within and between states compete more and more for the same resource as we grow and develop • State boundaries don’t recognize watersheds • Watersheds don’t recognize state boundaries • The weather doesn’t always cooperate

  33. “Development, management, and protection of water resources should be controlled by that level of government nearest the problem and most capable of effectively representingthe vital interest involved.” National Water Commission, 1973.

  34. Source: National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.

  35. “Conflict, unlike anywe’ve seen before,may soon befacing our nation.” Colonel Byron Jorns Water Wars: The Need for a National Water Policy 30 March 2007

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